Native ad test in Google Discover feeds gets a new look

The ads reflect the new design of Google Discover, previously known as Google Feed.

For several months, Google has been running a limited test to show ads in what’s now called Google Discover (it’s third name after “Google Now” and “Google Feed”). With recent rebrand to Google Discover last month, the ads also have an updated look.

New look. Spotted by a Reddit user, the native ads now have the look and feel of the redesigned organic news cards in the feed and the same ad label positioning next to the headline as text ads in Google search results. The ads also feature the advertiser name in the topic header.

Google is testing ads in the Discover feed.

What is Google Discover? The feed features news, articles and videos cards on the home page of the Google app — and soon on the Google.com homepage on desktop and mobile. Users can customize their feeds to include topics of interest to them.

Why it matters. Extending text ads to Discover opens up yet another advertising surface for Google and reach for advertisers on mobile, and eventually desktop. The test is only available to a set of whitelisted advertisers at this point. The impact is unclear, but the feed is already a high-traffic space on mobile alone.

About The Author

Ginny Marvin is Third Door Media's Editor-in-Chief, managing day-to-day editorial operations across all of our publications. Ginny writes about paid online marketing topics including paid search, paid social, display and retargeting for Search Engine Land, Marketing Land and MarTech Today. With more than 15 years of marketing experience, she has held both in-house and agency management positions. She can be found on Twitter as @ginnymarvin.